City of the Future
by Ante Down
Summary: A series of ficlets set in Midgar, pregame, ingame and postgame. Every drabble from a different character's perspective. Marlene's ficlet now up.
1. President Shinra: What I Own

**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

**President ShinRa: What I Own**

Midgar was a small town once.

Then one of its citizens devised a way to generate electricity from the power of the Lifestream. It became highly profitable, revolutionising the way of life in the village.

Soon, Midgar had swollen in size. The new residents spilled over the surrounding countryside, absorbing resources like a sponge. Buildings grew with the population. And all the while, ShinRa expanded into other towns, improving life in even the most remote places. It brought more and more people into Midgar, in search of work and a better life.

President ShinRa considered the city his. His technique had brought wealth to Midgar, and Midgar's wealth had brought more people. And the people brought more wealth. Everything stemmed from his invention. So, in some way, everything in the city was his.

Quite aside from philosophy, he did own the deeds to most of the land Midgar was situated on.

Time to use that land, and that wealth. Some rich men built grand houses for themselves and their heirs. He would rebuild a city. He would rebuild ShinRa headquarters in the centre of the city, and the city would be the grandest in the world.

He would own it all in truth.


	2. Reeve: Given All

**Disclaimer:** Not mine.

**Reeve: Given All**

Midgar was built with all of Reeve's idealism.

His design, so innovative, so skilled, had won him the backing of ShinRa, and approval to make his sketches buildings.

Midgar was Reeve's dreams made steel and concrete.

ShinRa's influence built Midgar quickly, the supports rising one after the other, the plates constructed on top of them, Mako generators flaring into operation as each section was completed. It was efficient and simple, each sector named for the village that had once stood beneath it.

It was beautiful too, in its way, bold lines and gleaming metal, without the angles those terms implied.

Reeve loved it, and promised himself he always would.

That promise proved harder and harder to keep as he rose through ShinRa's ranks, the 'architectural genius' gaining rapid promotion. He lost time to walk through the streets of his city, but gained information about how his fellow citizens were living.

He quickly discovered that not enough money was being spent on maintenance for those areas under the plate. Lights were broken, construction material was not being cleared out, garbage collection was infrequent at best, housing was a disaster, the only up-to-date part of the transport system was the security, and the water mains were in a terrible state of repair.

Finally, nearly twenty years after Midgar had been built, he believed that he had well and truly fallen out of love with the city. It had been warped by ShinRa to gain greater profits. As Head of Housing and Development, effectively the Mayor of Midgar, Reeve did his best to relieve the desperate situation in the slums, but there was not much he could do with his budget. Even adding a fair part of his own large salary did very little.

Then President ShinRa decided to have the Turks drop the plate on Sector Seven. It cut Reeve deeper than he thought it would.

And when Meteor was hurtling down towards Midgar and Reeve was evacuating everyone, he was the last to leave. Meteor was too close now. No matter what AVALANCHE did, Midgar would be destroyed.

Reeve was in love with the city he designed, but he realised that its fate was tied to ShinRa. And as ShinRa died, so should Midgar. And the Head of Housing and Development should die there too.

There was, however, space in the world for the person he'd become with AVALANCHE. Reeve knew what would work now, and to a certain extent, how to combine that with what was right. He had killed his city.

Time to build a replacement, on the edge of the other's ruins. Just so everyone could see and remember.

Edge was built with the ruins of Midgar and all of Reeve's wisdom.


	3. Barret: The Root of All Evil

**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

**Barret: The Root of all Evil**

To Barret, Midgar was a starting point. It was the home of ShinRa, and ShinRa had to be destroyed at its root, cut out and burned and the ground where it had stood salted.

It would also be a starting point for Marlene. The poor girl wouldn't be able to remember her birthplace, North Corel. And Midgar was a piss-poor place to grow up. Marlene wasn't Barret's daughter, but he'd be damned if he thought Dyne wanted his daughter to grow up in a tavern, wiping down bars and mixing drinks.

But then, he had never wanted to lead a revolution until now. Perhaps Marlene would grow used to it. He'd start setting aside money for her schooling, so she would at least be able to choose a career she wanted. With any luck, his politics would not be an issue.

He did not visit the top of the plate, instead choosing to stay in the slums, where security was looser and sympathisers more common. And there were a few of them around. People who could see how dark, grimy and poor the slums were.

One of them, a young woman called Tifa, let him use her tavern as a base. This was the real starting point. This was where the plans to destroy ShinRa would be formed. What happened in this tavern's basement would have repercussions for the rest of the world.


	4. Tifa: Holidays

**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

**Tifa: Holidays**

Midgar was Tifa's escape. She had nothing left at home- no, nothing left in Nibelheim. This slightly run-down tavern in the depths of the Sector Seven slums was her home now, bought with the money she inherited from her father. At first, customers had tried to take advantage of her, thinking a young girl would be easy to fool. But Tifa found she enjoyed having to stay alert for the trickery of her patrons, and they rarely got one over her.

More than anything, the relatively busy custom of her tavern stopped her from having to think too much about the circumstances under which she left her birthplace.

At first it was novel. But as time passed, Tifa saw less and less of the good spirits in which people in the slums seemed to live, and more and more despair. ShinRa neglected the people of the slums, aside from a few forlorn notices from the department of Housing and Development, and the situation was only getting worse.

She wrote a few letters to ShinRa, receiving only a few form-letter responses to her complaints. And still the slums stayed slums, the roads filthy and the light poor. Nothing was changing. And Tifa found that she had an increasing need to do something with her life.

So a few weeks before her eighteenth birthday, she began to seek out rebel groups.

It was not exactly a rebel group she found. Instead, it was one angry man and his baby daughter, obviously adopted. Tifa could sense there was a story behind that, but he didn't tell and she didn't ask. After all, she didn't tell him about her encounter with Sephiroth, nor the real reason she looked with such interest at newspaper articles about SOLDIER.

She never would, either. After all, that's what she came to Midgar to forget.


	5. Reno: Climbing the Ladder

**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

**Reno: Climbing the Ladder**

None of the Turks were very happy with their order to drop the plate on Sector Seven. Just because they were ruthless corporate spies and hitmen didn't mean they were murderous thugs, or so they liked to think. They had their concerns for human life.

It was an open secret among the Turks that Tseng had a bit of a soft spot for Aeris. The order to bring her in was obviously causing him some difficulties, though his professionalism would always see him through.

Rude, too, seemed to be worried about something, or someone. Reno had no idea what that was about.

In the end, Reno volunteered to be the one to ensure the plate fell. Tseng's cool efficiency was starting to crack under his concern for the Ancient. Rude, though he never said so, was hesitant.

Reno, however, had no such emotional attatchments or qualms.

He'd been born and raised in Midgar. He was a survivor. The poor of Midgar had to be. But unlike many others, he had climbed out of the stinking slums, to the plate above. Tseng had handed down the ladder. He realised that the price for the help may well have been his soul, but he had no use for it anyway.

He owed Midgar nothing, and his colleagues everything. So he was the one to fight AVALANCE and commit mass murder.


	6. Aerith: Sunshine

**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

**Aerith: Sunshine**

The first thing Aerith noticed about the church was the light. It was golden, and totally unlike the harsh fluorescence she was used to. It looked like it rubbed off on the old wood of the building, and that even if the light passed the gold would remain.

Her mother had snuck her out of ShinRa headquarters in the middle of the night. She had seen the sky briefly, just for a few seconds, before Ifalna had practically dragged them beneath the plate. Aerith hadn't seen the stars on that occasion; it had been cloudy that night.

And later that night, when she had felt rain for the first time since she was a very little girl, Ifalna had died. Aerith could remember her mother telling her that the feeling of rain on your face was one of the most beautiful feelings in the world. She hadn't seen or felt rain since, and she was glad of it. Rain would be for her mother, and her mother was with the voices. She couldn't help feeling sad. Elmyra was good to take her in, she knew it, but she was too protective. Aerith could look after herself. Enough to wander the sector.

And today, she had found this church, where there was sunshine. She laughed and ran towards it, pausing at the very edge of the light. Tentatively, she stuck her hand in. The light was warm. The lights set into the underside of the plate were too high to feel heat from. She stepped all the way into the sunshine, and watched her own skin and clothed turn gold.

There must have been a crack in the plate, or a join in the metal, or some such, for the light to be there, she thought, as the light faded to an equally soft white. And in the centre of the light, there was bare ground. Not baked hard under the light, but soft. Like the earth outside Elmyra's house. Scrabbling through the dirt, she had found old seeds.

Maybe she could plant them here. The voices murmured their approval. She hadn't heard them since they said that Elmyra's husband had died, two weeks ago. She could see it now, sunshine and flowers where the centre of worship was supposed to be, the pews facing towards them. A quiet place.

She went home smiling, and wouldn't tell Elmyra why. She wouldn't, until she could bring home the money she got for selling the fully grown flowers. It only made sense to share, and it was a way of repaying Elmyra for her kindness. Her mother would approve, she thought.

The next day, she returned to the church, and laughed as it rained over her newly planted seeds.


	7. Vincent: Something Old

**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

**Vincent: Something Old**

Vincent had not been to Midgar for a very long time.

It was definitely different. There was less light, more dirt, more metal. Idly he wondered how the man who controlled Cait Sith could have allowed it to come to this.

The Midgar Vincent remembered was smaller. Definitely smaller. He had not had to parachute in, either. These days, Midgar was a lot less trusting, it appeared. Reflective of ShinRa and its influence. Such a twisted metallic place was certainly where Hojo belonged. Vincent could easily imagine the scientist ghosting around his laboratory in the high levels of ShinRa headquarters, looking over the city.

Lucrecia had never liked Midgar very much. She had hated Nibelheim's mountains too. Metal and stone was not for her, for all that she was a scientist. Vincent had asked her once. She had said that if she could live anywhere she wanted, without considering her career, she would live in Gongaga. The forest was beautiful, she said. So many trees. You never saw them in Midgar.

Lucrecia was gone now, and Gongaga was a ghost town, from what the others told him. He had left Nibelheim too, the first place he had really been happy. It had been hard enough leaving his penance behind, too. His penance…Cloud and Tifa both understood. Tifa perhaps more than any other. But she had not dwelt on her wrongs, instead making a new life for herself. In Midgar.

Apparently Midgar as it was now could create things. Recreate people. It would not do that for him, he knew. After this was over, he would not come back to Midgar. The city itself was dead, its time gone.

So much from his old life was gone, his dreams slipped away. Just like the dream of Midgar. It was sad to see Cait Sith's eager desperation to save Midgar. The city had fallen, been twisted beyond recognition, and yet the ShinRa employee behind Cait Sith was still determined to save the shattered remnants.

Just like him.

When the time came, they would both have to build something new.


	8. Yuffie: Anecdotal Evidence

**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

**Yuffie: Anecdotal Evidence**

Yuffie has never been to Midgar. When she left Wutai, she stuck to the forests, only approaching settlements when she needed more food, or medicine, or stuff like that. She preferred it that way. She didn't have to see how ShinRa had changed the people of other towns.

Aerith laughed at her for that view. People were just people everywhere, she said. Some of them good, some of them bad. But she agreed that ShinRa was, on the whole, bad, and had done bad things to communities.

Yuffie asked what ShinRa had done to her community. Aerith described a place she loved, a ruined church where she grew flowers, and that she hid from ShinRa in. She described her foster mother's grief over her husband's death, and the state of the slums in sorrow.

Curious about the city now, she asked Barret about it. "Rotten to the core" was all he said.

Tifa was as sad as Aerith about the state of the slums. Her overview was perhaps more politically informed, the view of an activist. Tifa tried to keep her voice level, but her rage at the destruction of one of the suburbs- Sector Seven?- was very real. Her voice choked up and everything.

When she asked Vincent about Midgar, he said nothing. Moping bastard.

Cloud didn't know much either. When he'd been in Midgar, he'd been more interested in running away from people trying to kill him, an idea Yuffie thought was eminently sensible.

Red had spent most of his time in Midgar in Hojo's lab. He said, very politely, that he felt he was unqualified to make a judgment based on that experience. Fair enough. She wouldn't want to relive or talk about Hojo doing experiments on her either.

Cid was more forthcoming. He seemed to have extensive knowledge of the city, both on top of the plate and under it. But then she realised that he was just talking about the various bars and dives he'd been to. Tifa jokingly teased him about never visiting hers.

In the end, Cait Sith told her most about life in Midgar. He seemed to know everything about it. He told her that conditions in the slums were bad too, but he said that something could be done, that the city was not without redeeming features. She asked about that, and he said he'd spent a lot of time in Midgar earlier. For a toy mog riding a stuffed cat, he certainly could tell a story. He'd sounded pretty human as he'd done so, too.

When she finally did see Midgar, she was impressed. It was just as huge and wrecked as Tifa had told her. Cait Sith's view was harder to see. Red told her she'd come around to it someday.


	9. Zack: Options for Escape

**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

**A/N: **Well, over the next few days I'll be posting quite a few of these. An apology, of sorts, for neglecting these stories.

**Zack: Options for Escape**

Now that they were out of Nibelheim, the problem that presented itself to Zack was where they'd go next. Riding in this truck beneath that oh-so-blue sky, the sky that neither he nor Spike had seen for years, was fine for now, but it could not last forever.

He considered returning to Gongaga, but discounted that. They could too easily be tracked down there. His parents must have thought he was dead- it was safer for them if he didn't let them know otherwise.

He considered the Costa del Sol as a refuge. Sun, sand, girls. Nothing to worry about. But then he remembered that it was a major ShinRa port. And also, there was no real work there, just portering, or being a waiter, or some other menial service job. The Costa del Sol was for a vacation- there was no future there, just time to waste.

He'd been stuck in the tank too long. He was getting _philosophical_.

And besides, the place was bloody expensive. So the Northern Continent was out as well. Though Zack knew Junon well, it was so overrun by ShinRa employees that it was not an option either.

They couldn't go to a small town, either. They'd stand out too much. If the girls in Midgar noticed Spike's hair when half the time it was hidden under one of those helmets, the girls in North Corel or Kalm would notice it too. Spike could cut it or dye it, but the eyes…neither of them could do anything about the eyes.

So as much as it was Zack's instinct to avoid large amount of people, he decided that they'd go to Midgar. Hide right under ShinRa's nose. Spike'd still have to do something about that hair, though.

Poor sod was still out of it. Just couldn't take his Mako.

Out of the corner of his eye, Zack saw a stunted bush by the side of the road, bearing small ragged-looking yellow flowers.

Aerith. Aerith would have thought he was dead too. Well, if they were going to Midgar anyway, he could disabuse her of that notion. She wouldn't mind looking after him and Spike. Hell, she'd love Spike. And Spike'd love her. Sappy as it sounded, Zack thought she was the brightest thing in the slums. People were just drawn to her.

Oh god, far too long in that tank.

They could find employment in Midgar, too. Something more suited to their skills. He doubted Spike could do anything but fight, and he knew he certainly couldn't. Obviously they couldn't go back to ShinRa- they were probably still upset about the whole incident with Sephiroth- but they could be mercenaries. They could fight for anyone who paid them.

Heh, they could try to put the Turks out of business. Not a good idea.

Midgar it was. It had employment, and Aerith, and safety. Midgar was the place to start a new life. He'd take charge, of course, Spike was still drooling a little bit. He'd get over it eventually.

He'd died within sight of Midgar. It was only after he was dead that he appreciated the irony.


	10. Nanaki: Concrete Dust

**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

**Nanaki: Concrete Dust**

Nanaki could not see the sky from the glass cage Hojo was keeping him in.

He was high up, he knew. He could barely hear anything from ground level. Just the occasional screech from a vehicle and other, similar sounds. One night there was a huge thud. Hojo had just turned to the window and said that the plate must have been dropped.

It occurred to Nanaki that all the sounds he could hear from below were those of destruction.

He couldn't smell much either, above the scents from Hojo's other experiments. The first scent he got from Midgar was when Aerith had been put in his cage. As he pretended to savage her, he smelled fresh earth, perspiration, concrete dust and faintly, flower petals.

Maybe there were flowers out there, in the lower reaches of the city. He wouldn't have expected there to be many growing things in Midgar. Judging by first impressions could be dangerous.

But then, he had nothing to base his impressions on except the scent on the people who came in. And there weren't many of them.

The three who came to rescue Aerith were a sensory revelation. The woman with long dark hair smelled of alcohol and floral perfume and the leather of her gloves. The men smelled of metal. Red noted the faded bloodstains on the smaller man's clothes. Not entirely unexpected from a swordsman- blood tended to spray. Nanaki had learned that from just his short stay in Hojo's labs.

They all smelled of concrete dust too.

And when they were all detained by the men in blue suits, Nanaki realised that those men also smelled of concrete dust. One of them was wearing cologne, too. He was no expert, but Nanaki thought it had probably been fairly expensive.

The President's office was as sterile as Hojo's labs, spacious and empty. There was no sound but the hum of machinery, no texture beneath his paws but smooth black marble, no smell but a faint trace of coolant and the meal that had been delivered here two hours ago. The walls, however, had large windows, and that provided Nanaki with his first real sight of Midgar.

It was so high, higher than he had expected. About seventy floors above the "ground", but the grounds itself was raised in the air. Surreptitious glances around the room showed that the view was much the same on all sides. Glowing lights showed the outlines of streets. From here, it was beautiful.

There were two flaws in the view. One, a smoking wreck of a building where he thought one of the power plants should have been. Two, a gaping hole in the lights, where the "ground" seemed to have fallen away.

He remembered what Hojo had said. "The plate must have fallen."

How many people must have been killed by that? People on top of the plate as well as below it. People near the edge of the impact, killed by debris. What must the damage to property be? How many homeless?

Nanaki's first sight of the sky in weeks was obscured by a haze of dust. It must have come from the plate's fall. That was the origin of the concrete dust on everyone's clothes- they had all been on Midgar's streets.

It was not a nice smell, Nanaki thought. It was gritty and dead and clung to every fold of clothing. It was not overpowering, just persistent. Even after he and his companions had a chance to bathe and do their laundry in Kalm, he could still smell the slightest traces, though they faded as they drew further away from Midgar.

Nanaki thought he would always associate the smell of that concrete dust with death, and with Midgar.

More than a hundred years later, he re-evaluated that second association. He decided to associate Midgar with the smell of flowers instead.


	11. Cid: Happy Hour

**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

**Cid: Happy Hour**

Cid spent most of his time in Midgar in bars.

Well, he only went there to fight with the bureaucratic morons of ShinRa. An hour with them was more than enough to drive him to drink.

Well, to drink stronger stuff than he would anyway.

He found he avoided the upmarket bars on the plate. They were all polished wood, dark green upholstered booths and dim yet adequate yellowed light. The only variation seemed to be in the colour of the upholstery. Even then, the variation didn't seem to be very various, just red, blue or green upholstery, or a dark wood finish instead of a cherry one.

After drinking at and moving on from about four of these bars, Cid was usually more than ready to buy a bottle of something stronger and just drink it in an alley somewhere. It was cold and not so comfortable, but at least it wasn't so _boring_.

Even this tactic was made difficult by the fact that most of the strong stuff liquor shops on the plate sold was pricey, and far too smooth to get properly drunk on.

It was so unfortunate that he had to stay on the plate when arguing with ShinRa's bozos.

This was why Cid tried to avoid Midgar.

Sometimes, however, after he'd fought and won or lost a round with the administrators who seemed to love making his life difficult, he would stay an extra day to visit some of the taverns in the slums.

These were proper taverns and bars. The lighting was genuinely bad, the stools were moderately uncomfortable and definitely _not_ upholstered, and you could get splinters from the bar itself if you weren't careful. More importantly, the clientele weren't a clientele, they were customers, drinkers, and patrons. They needed a drink, not a place to "unwind".

It was a different crowd altogether, and it was infinitely more fun. One memorable evening, Cid had nearly lost an eye in a darts game. He hadn't been standing in front of the board at all; it was just that the player had been so drunk he couldn't tell where the board was. Naturally, everyone had thought this was hilarious.

Another night, Cid had spent a wonderful two hours gambling outrageously at poker while his fellow gamblers had become as drunk as humanly possible. Cid thought he'd left the bar with more money than he started with; he couldn't be sure. He'd certainly left without his shirt.

There were hazards in these rougher places- some of them were rougher than the Junon bars. Occasionally Cid would emerge from a bar bruised fairly seriously, but they had to carry the other guy out. Occasionally Cid himself was the one kicked out. This was more common if he'd lost the latest round with the bureaucrats.

At times like those, he was glad that the slum bars sold the sort of booze he was used to.

And then, there were the times when Cid would enter a bar and everyone was drinking to forget. Most times, he'd turn around and leave. Sometimes, he'd stay. Those times, when he left, he would see the trash on the streets more clearly, and the shadows under the barkeep's eyes would stand out more, everyone seemed that bit more poor, and the alcohol would burn more on the way down.

He'd leave town the morning after with an empty wallet, but no hangover.


	12. Marlene: Memento

**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

**A/N: **Wow, it's been a while. My apologies.

**Memento**

Even two years after the whole Geostigma thing, Marlene wasn't allowed to play in the ruins of Midgar. None of her friends were. All of them had heard the lectures- the buildings were unstable, a lot of the metal lying around was sharp, rusty, dirty, they could get lost, blah, blah, blah.

Marlene didn't always listen to the lectures. Once, not long before the Geostigma, Cloud had caught her exploring the edges of what had once been Sector Six. She'd found the remains of what had once been a shop. It couldn't have been a very successful one; the place was tiny. She suspected that some of the dust in the corners had been there since before Meteor.

Cloud had spotted her there, opening a cupboard in the back, pink ribbon standing out amongst all the grey and dull brown. He'd taken her home and told Tifa and her father exactly what she'd been up to. They'd both given her long lectures about the dangers of playing in the ruins. Cloud hadn't, but his silence was distinctly disapproving. It was one of the only times she had a chance to ride on his motorbike, she remembered.

The Geostigma, or the Advent, as some called it, was another occasion where she had been allowed in the wreckage. She'd gone with Tifa to the remnants of the building everyone now called Aerith's Church. It was a peaceful place; Marlene could understand why Cloud liked it here. She couldn't, however, understand why Cloud wanted to _live_ there. Peaceful or not, it was half destroyed.

There was more to the Old City than just Aerith's Church, though. The alleys were endless, and deserted. So many places had been abandoned with personal possessions or merchandise still in them. Many people had left almost everything they owned behind when Meteor fell, and never returned for it. This was especially true of the shops, when there was no longer a market for many of the goods they sold. Healing items were eagerly scavenged, but weapons, many ShinRa machine parts and trinkets lay on the same shelves they had seven years ago. Provided the entire building hadn't been destroyed.

Three days after her tenth birthday, Marlene snuck into the Old City alone again. She avoided Aerith's Church- even after so long, and even though he lived at Seventh Heaven, Cloud still visited the Church frequently. And even though she was old enough to look after herself, Cloud would still take her straight back home if he found her.

Instead, she headed in the direction of her old home in Sector Seven. A lot of it had been excavated. People wanted to at least try to find the remains of their loved ones. Virtually nobody was successful, and all that remained after the excavation was flat muddy ground.

It was late afternoon when she arrived in more or less the right area. Try as she might, she could not find even a trace of anything that might once have been her old home. There was plenty interesting, though, including an old weapons shop, rusty blades still in brackets on the wall. Marlene eagerly picked her way through the rubble in search of more.

She didn't even notice how late it was until the moon was out. Then she realised that she was lost, too. She was suddenly afraid. Not just because she was alone, at night, in a ruined city. There were stories, too, stories that she laughed at during the day. But at night, tales of ghosts haunting the ruins of the Old City seemed a lot more likely. After all, if Aerith's spirit could haunt the Church, there was no reason why anyone else who'd been killed in the Meteor Days couldn't haunt _their_ old homes.

The wind whistling through the derelict buildings suddenly seemed sinister. All the shadows looked like people. There was a woman, crying over the ruins of her family's home. There was a boy, dead in the street. There was an old man, bent over in despair.

Marlene knew, in a vague and abstract way, that the Old City had been a hard place, harder even than Edge. But the ghosts she could see now seemed as real as the rocks she was leaning on, and they were all in pain. They were in pain and there was nothing they could do, there was no escape and they'd be here forever along with her and-

-there was a light in the sky. Meteor. The sky was falling and Marlene felt like she was four again.

But then she realised that the light wasn't the red shade that Meteor had been, and wasn't nearly bright enough. And people were calling her name. She called back.

It was Cloud who found her. Again. He listened to her frightened stories about ghosts and Meteor and soothed her.

"Why don't we get rid of this place, Cloud?" she asked. "It's horrible!"

He smiled sadly. "Because we need to remember. You need to know what happened, what it was like before Meteor."

She sniffed again, and wiped her face on her sleeve. "Then why can't I play here?"

Cloud laughed as he took her hand, leading her back towards Edge.


End file.
